The importance of religious tolerance - First Person - Brief Article

Humanist, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Julia Travis

You're going to hell," my best friend old me, her eyes fierce. "You don't believe in God, so you're going to die and go to hell." I was nine years old.

Eight years later, I stood in the library of my suburban public high school, wrestling with masking tape and colored paper, trying to hang the display I had created in honor of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When I was finally done, I stepped back to get a better look at the project I had spent weeks on. Two students, unaware that I was its creator, stopped to evaluate the display.

"Yom Kipper?" said one, mispronouncing the words with disdain. "What, did we get more Jew kids around here?"

"Yeah, what the hell," agreed his companion. "Isn't this thing, like, discrimination or something?"

I cringed inwardly as they walked away. Not that I hadn't heard comments like that before. In my predominantly white, middle-class, Christian city, diversity--especially of the religious sort--is fairly nonexistent and rarely promoted. Growing up an atheist, albeit a church-going one, never failed to separate me from my peers. In elementary school I was the only one who kept my mouth shut when we pledged allegiance to the Christian god. In middle school, I sat home on Wednesdays while my friends hung out with the local church's youth group. Now as a high school student I have explained more times than I can count what it means to be Unitarian Universalist and how I can go to church without believing in God.

Why is religious tolerance so important? Wouldn't it be easier for us to go on living in our cozy shells, immersed with only the view of the world we have adhered to all our lives? The simple answer is yes. However, the simple answer is not the right one.

It is much too easy to point to infamous examples of religious intolerance, such as the Holocaust, and say, "That will never happen again." It seems much too grand and too vague, over half a century later, like an evil that was long put to sleep. But the comments of the boys looking at my display only serve to prove the importance of teaching tolerance. Not to say that these high school students will grow up to be the next Hitler--but if they aren't taught to respect the religions and cultures of those around them at an early age, they will grow up to be the bigots of the future, carrying the torch of intolerance.

I have always been taught that it is important to learn about others so that I can better know myself. I have prayed with Baptists, meditated with Buddhists, and built a Sukkoth. While I may not embrace the teachings of all of the world's religions, I certainly have an understanding of them and, thus, a deep sense of respect and appreciation. Yet I have also seen people scorned for the things they believe in. Even if it doesn't happen in my own hometown, I know that every day someone on this earth dies because someone else disagrees with his or her beliefs. Sometimes frightening, sometimes uplifting, all of these experiences have helped me to search for what is true and right in my own life.

Religious tolerance celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of all people and encourages individuals to look outside of themselves for meaning in life. It fosters respect and appreciation of the differences between us, which may separate us at times but ultimately bind us together as a unique collaboration of human beings. My experiences with other religions haven't only expanded my horizons but caused me to deeply examine my own beliefs as well. As a result of my appreciation of religious diversity, my own values are particularly firm because I have been able to explore alternatives to my beliefs and, essentially, prove to myself that what I believe is right for me.

To live a life of religious tolerance is more than just agreeing with the concept. As Gandhi said, we must be the change we wish to see in the world. Promoting diversity is not a passive undertaking. It must be fully grasped and celebrated by each individual to ensure maximum impact. We must live the principles we believe; stand up for what we think is just; speak our minds, even if our voices shake; and remember that the appreciation for religious diversity comes in the form of our actions as well as our thoughts. Every word, every hand, every embrace makes a difference.

The friend who told me I'm going to hell still thinks that she adheres to the only legitimate religion in the world and that everyone else is obviously wrong. The two boys who looked at my bulletin board probably still don't know what Yom Kippur is.

But there was a girl standing in front of the display a few days later, probably a freshman. Maybe she didn't notice me as I walked by, but as she read the words on the board, I heard her quietly say, "That's cool."

And that's why I'll never stop fighting for the appreciation of religious diversity. No matter what religion my children decide to embrace, when they tell someone else about it I want them to hear these words in reply: "That's cool."

Julia Travis is an eighteen-year-old graduate of Churchill High School in Livonia, Michigan. This essay earned honorable mention in the 2000 Humanist Essay Contest for Young Women and Men of North America.